Repost From It’s All About Me
This repost from a year ago is about being successful when you build character and being a person with whom people want to do business.
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Repost from Business and Network Marketing Coach
March 19, 2009
by Judith ShermanLet me share my response with you after I read an email I received yesterday. The email was from a man who wanted to help promote my business on the Internet. I share this story because I want you to appreciate how we sometimes become when we focus on pursuing our dreams.
I want to be very transparent about my motives here because the information in this story could be important to you. Perhaps you will relate to my experience and recognize something about yourself as well.
I learned something about myself when I attended a Dale Carnegie Training class last night. I saw a side of me that I was not aware of, and because I was not aware of it, I didn’t know that I often come off as arrogant and abrasive to people. That is not the person I want to be or how I want to represent myself when I meet people.
I see the same characteristic I saw in myself as being in others who are active in this field. However, like me, they may not recognize it in themselves. As Dr. Phil says, “We can’t change what we don’t acknowledge.” So please read my response to reading the email and being an abrasive type of person. Then I will tell you why I wrote this posting and why I titled it the way I did.
Dear Sir, I appreciate your offer but I am part of Marketing Merge and Renegade University. I have applied the principles taught there and doing pretty well. Now I am chosing to take the next step in my career and become a mentor for network marketers. I am excited about this and what I will be able to do for others with this training. I am writing updates on my blog about what I am learning from my Carnegie experience. I know what I’ve learned will help others like me some day.
Perhaps you will check out my blogs. I will be adding one more article tonight about what I learned this evening.
I have done MLM for over thirty years. I’ve had the best teachers, read all the books suggested on the reading list, listened to all training and positive motivation tapes, gone to every seminar and every business meeting, and sat with the most successful people in the field … and I am not exaggerating about any of this.
I’ve succeeded and failed, and I’ve picked myself up and started over again and again This is often the nature of network marketing.
I know when a business is not within FTC regulations and will be shut down when it’s notice. I also know when hype is used to cover up a sinking ship or holes in the plan.
I know when someone is only interested in their success after stepping over people to get there. I know a “come-on” or an approach the minute I hear it; I learned them all and I used them.
I have gathered a lot knowledge and experience over the years and so I’ve been mentoring others; I found out that I am darn good at it. So now that is what I’m doing, along with my Network Marketing business.
However, I realize there are thousands of mentors on the Internet so what makes me different enough to get clientele?
First thing that makes me different is that I enrolled in the Dale Carnegie Training. It cost just under $2,000 for the 12 week course. When I complete the course, I will become an instructor for them.
Having the Carnegie Course under my belt will make me a better person, a better writer, a better leader, a better trainer, and a better mentor. This one thing alone can put me a step above most of those who profess to be mentors on the Internet.
Now you have likely figured out why I titled this post “It’s All About Me!” What I learned at Carnegie is that everything I did up to this point os all about me. For the first time, I realized that people in the class saw through me and knew that my objectives were centered around me. I did not see how what I contributed to the class might not be helpful to others. Unfortunately, I saw everything clearly tonight about the person I had become; and it was only the second class.
Dale Carnegie wrote the book titled, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. He teaches that, in order to get what we want, we need to help people get what they want. Being sincerely interested in the other person, listening to them and what they want, means being humble enough to accept that this is not about me. Being humble and sincere is not the way someone would describe me, and I learned that tonight.
People see through the fakes, those only interested in themselves. I recognize that is the person I have become, even though I thought of myself as serving others. This person may have been who I was in the past, but that is not who I am now. I am so very grateful for what I learned tonight. I now understand a lot more about myself and how I can be a better mentor and serve people better than I have been.
I should have known that the only type of success we should want to attain is that which makes us feel good inside. We feel good when we help others obtain what they want before we try to satisfy ourselves. We feel good when helping others fulfill their potentials and see how their achievements make them happy!
One of the success principles that many Network Marketers and Business Owners forget is that what goes around comes around, and that we get what we want when others get what they want. This success principle is taught in the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, by Dale Carnegie.
I knew all of this but I did not know how to become that person again. Although I had been successful in the past at helping others get what they want first, I had forgotten it and lost my ability to focus on others.
My brother wanted me to join a social site. I didn’t want to and did not have the time to spend. I wanted to do my business and not waste time on a social site. Then I realized this was my answer for getting humble and out of myself. When I made friends and began to know them and interacting with them, I became my old self again. I became the person that made others feel good just by being me. I needed the social site to soften my rough edges and make me a more loving and kind person.
I am not saying that joining a social site will help you the way it did me, but whatever it takes to soften you up and make you a more kind and loving person, then that is what you need to pursue. So, if you want to change the hardened business person that you think you have become, then I encourage you to do something to serve others and that helps you forget about yourself and your own pursuits.
I realize that this is the opposite of what some upline and business mentors teach. I also realize that books on how to succeed tell you to stay focused on what you want and everything you do must be working toward that goal. If you agree with these people and do what they teach,you will actually push away the people you need to give you the successes you want.
Think about it. Do you enjoy being around people like you want to become? If you don’t like people like this, why do you think others will like you if you are like them? And why do you think others will want what you offer if they do not like you? People would rather be far away from you than to do business with you.
So what is the answer? Do you follow what you are being taught by the so-called experts or do you want to become the type of person with whom you would want to do business? Would you want to do business with someone who cares about you or with a stranger who just wants to make a buck?
I welcome your comments on this topic, especially if you recognized this flaw in your own character because of this article.
Thanks,
Judith Sherman
